Marbleheaders and crowdfunding: The good, the bad and the 'Ugly'

A group of creative Marbleheaders is learning to their delight that their dream projects are a lot closer to reality than they think, thanks to the exploding Internet phenomenon known as crowdfunding.

A group of creative Marbleheaders is learning to their delight that their dream projects are a lot closer to reality than they think, thanks to the exploding Internet phenomenon known as crowdfunding.

There are several sites in the crowdfunding business. One of the most popular, Kickstarter, boasted this past week that it had surpassed the $1 billion mark in pledges received. Though the site has been around for more than five years, about half of those pledges have come in over the past 12 months, according to published reports.

Different sites have different rules, but the basic idea is this: You have an idea — for a book, a TV show, a restaurant or whatever. What you don’t have is the money to make it happen. You create a page on one of these sites, making an appeal, which frequently has a multimedia component, like a video or audio slideshow. Right there on the same screen is a button would-be supporters can click to begin the process of pledging their support for a project. As an incentive, the creator of the project offers a series of incentives — a signed copy of the book or an on-screen credit, perhaps — that increase in value with the size of the pledge.

Kickstarter distinguishes itself in that it is an all-or-nothing realm. The project’s creator sets a goal, and if he or she does not attain that goal in pledges, none of the donors’ credit cards are charged, and the project receives no funding. Other sites — like Indegogo or Rockethub — allow the project creator to keep most of the funds raised even if a goal is not met but charge a higher administrative fee in such cases.

But listen to those who have used crowdfunding successfully locally, and they’ll tell you that they’ve gotten some things that are almost as valuable as money from their experience, including affirmation and the peace of mind of knowing that something that they were thinking about putting out into the world was actually wanted.

A lucky ‘break’

Eyal Oren is an allergist by profession. But for many local residents (particularly those without hay fever), he is the talented photographer behind the “Wednesdays in Marblehead” website and Facebook page, Wednesdays being Oren’s day off, when he takes to the streets of the town to which he moved six years ago to capture unfailingly stunning images.

Back in December, however, Oren’s photo forays hit a slight snag when he broke a bone in his foot. Part of his rehabilitation sent him to Hand in Hand Massage, where talk with owner Monique Illona turned to the book, "A Dual Path: Sacred Practices and Bodywork,” which Illona had just raised more than $7,000 to have published on Indegogo.

Prior to that, Oren had received an inquiry on his Facebook page about turning his photos into a book, but his initial investigation into the costs had discouraged him from pursuing it further. The visit to receive physical therapy proved to be Oren’s proverbial “light-bulb moment.”

By Feb. 5, Oren had launched his campaign to fund the “Wednesdays in Marblehead” coffee-table book. Within nine days, he had blown past his initial funding goal of $11,000. That allowed him to move the goal posts and set a “stretch goal” of $18,000 (which he was less than $400 short of as of press time). If the second goal is hit, the resulting book will be bigger (11-by-11 and 150 pages instead of 10-by-10 and 120 pages).

“The power of [crowdfunding] is when you want to put something out there and see if it has an audience and what the market is going to do with it,” Oren said.

He added that he would have been satisfied just to learn that there was no market. If it were confirmed to be a pipe dream, he could at least put the idea behind him.

“To see that degree of support reaffirmed the desire” to put out the book, he said.

He added, “Now I know what the market looks like, and the product is going to be much bigger and better. It was great affirmation, humbling and very cool.”

Oren hopes to have the book off to the presses by the end of this month and take delivery of the first printing of 1,000 books by early July. Some of those will be signed and delivered to his Kickstarter supporters. Others will wind up in local stores, retailing for $44.95.

Getting to turn the pages

A couple of local authors are a bit further down the road with crowdfunding their projects. One, of course, is Illona, who just this week got back the proofs of her book, which is “geared towards bodywork professionals and their clients” but “may be used by anyone who wishes to embark on a path of transformation and an awakened spirit,” she notes on her Indegogo page.

“It is known that massage and bodywork is good for the body, that it can alleviate physical stress and tension, decrease physical discomforts, aches and pains…. However, it is also a powerful force of healing for the other aspects that make up the totality of the complicated and multidimensional beings we are: the energetic matrix,” she writes of the book’s premise.

Of meeting her fundraising goal, Illona notes it was “a lot of work” to keep people engaged with the project using social media and other means of getting the word out. Unlike with Oren’s project, it was touch and go as to whether she would meet her goal until the day her deadline arrived.

Despite the work involved, Illona enjoyed the experienced, which she likened to “micro lending,” without the need to pay the money back, of cours.

“It’s a way to make things happen that wouldn’t normally happen,” she said. “It’s a very hopeful way of doing things.”

Her book should arrive by early to mid-April.

Already in stores is a collection of columns written by the Reporter’s Lisa Sugarman. The book, titled “Life: It Is What It Is,” bears a striking cover of a pair of women’s legs as seen from under the door of a bathroom stall. The concept came from a faithful fan of her column, who once told Sugarman, “It’s like you are talking to me from the next bathroom stall.”

It was Sugarman’s husband, Dave, who first suggested she mount a Kickstarter campaign after watching the sites in action for a few years. Still, after checking out the site herself, Sugarman had her doubts given the “amount of people out there with brilliant ideas,” some of which, unlike hers, were products and services, and not just “one-dimensional.”

Nonetheless, within two weeks of launching her project — offering rewards beginning with “my endless gratitude and a really warm feeling inside” for a pledge of $1 or more to that same warm feeling “plus a thank-you call or email from me where I’ll gush to you about how grateful I am” for $20 or more — Sugarman met her $4,000 goal. She wound up with an additional $1,000, which she has poured back into the project, printing additional copies and enhancing its promotional campaign.

What crowdfunding allowed Sugarman to do is strike while the iron is hot. Her column, she explained, “had built up nice momentum and traction through social media.” In the pre-crowdfunding era, she might have been able to convince an publishing agent to take her on and embark on what could have been a lengthy process to convince a publishing house to take on the project. Now, she’s gone from concept to holding the book in her hands in a few short months. She will be at the Spirit of ‘76 Bookstore, 107 Pleasant St., from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, March 13 for a book signing.

The book has been organized “using Marblehead as the main character,” which Sugaman noted was an “incredible suggestion” offered by acquaintance Nikki Sabin, an editor with the Harvard Business School Press. Sugarman hopes “Life: It Is What It Is” will appeal to book clubs, particularly those with members lacking the fortitude or free time to get to the last page of a particularly tome before meeting. Instead, with her book, someone could just choose a column, read it aloud, and off the discussion would go, she suggested.

Reaching across the miles

Crowdfunding can also be a way for local residents to reach across the miles to support those who might have moved on from town to other adventures. At least that’s the hope of Emily Yetter, 2006 Marblehead High School graduate, Rebel Shakespeare Co. veteran and daughter of former Reporter editor Frank Yetter.

Emily Yetter, now 25, left Marblehead to attend UCLA at age 18 and has been on the West Coast ever since, save for a national tour of “Peter Pan,” which brought her back East in the fall of 2011.

Her latest role is as one of three leading ladies in a new show being produced by her Los Angeles-based company, a Working Theater, which has the working title “Monster Girls.”

“If you're a fan of dark comedy, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and/or stories that feature fully realized female characters, then this is the show you've been waiting for!” reads the show’s Kickstarter page, which as of Wednesday had garnered over $8,000 in pledges, only a third of the $25,000 needed to reach its goal with less than two weeks to go.

Yetter’s character is Hazel, “one of the lesser demons, known for causing mischief. Small, dirty, hairy, with two little horns, vicious little teeth, and an inescapable love of violence and mayhem. Wholly wild, fond of pranks and misleading people.”

As dark and “out there” as the project might seem, Yetter stresses that her character and the other leads are “also really human,” their humanity revealed by their struggles to “deal with being a monster” in the modern world.

While Oren and Sugarman were fortunate not to have to endure it, Yetter explained that she and her colleagues are now having to endure a common crowdfunding phenomenon: the mid-campaign lull, which she acknowledged is “terrifying.” She noted that pledges came in fast and furious initially, with the project reaching 15 percent of its goal very quickly. But since then, pledges have slowed, prompting plans to film “guerilla videos” and other efforts to get the project back at the forefront of potential supporters’ minds.

“We want to make the project so badly,” she said, noting that if they can just get it filmed, there are any number of potential distribution channels — including cable channels, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube or other online platforms — where the series might land.

“It’s rare to see a show about three girls who are not trying to do whatever it takes to fit in, not trying to fit any mold,” she said. “That’s different and important.”

Potential pitfalls

Of course, not all crowdfunding campaigns go as planned, as Marblehead native Diane Wolf, co-owner of “dyed-in-the-wool dive bar” the Lobster Shanty and, now, the all-day breakfast joint the Ugly Mug Diner, both based in Salem. To launch the Ugly Mug Diner — coffee drinkers will be matched to an “ugly mug” from the eatery’s recently acquired motley mismatched collection — set a goal of raising $50,000 through Rocket Hub, which she acknowledged was overly ambitious in a recent Facebook post, titled “Diane’s Folly.”

“I realize now what a folly it was to set our goal so high,” she wrote. “I am nothing if not ambitious, and right now I’m more than a little embarrassed about that. I hope that the Good People of Salem don’t see this as greed – this is just the dollars we need to throw open the doors to the perfect diner that we want to share with the community.”

Still, the campaign earned $16,560 in pledges from 184 funders and help gained the business almost 900 Facebook fans before it even swings open its doors. It also helped the Ugly Mug secure funds from private lenders that might not have been attainable had the business not been able to point to “hard data” showing support for it in the community.

Despite not reaching its goal, the Ugly Mug Diner will become a reality, probably by mid-April, allowing Wolf to achieve a dream for which the seeds were planted in her youth, when her father would take her to diners. Wolf added that, in her “first life,” she had been a photographer who once put together a show of images from diners and always secretly harbored plans of running one.

In one sense, the Ugly Mug Diner will be a “good old-fashioned breakfast place.” It just won’t be “all that old-fashioned,” Wolf explained. Right now, the decor inside 122 Washington St., Salem, is being transformed from what had been the tasteful (if a bit boring) Taste of Thyme Cafe to meet Wolf’s vision of a more fun and funky eatery. For example, one wall will have height markers painted on it, so that visitors can take their own “mug shots.” Other walls will be able to be written on with chalk.

Wolf’s work history also includes about five years at Shubie’s and a stint at the King’s Rook — “I miss that place so much,” she said — and she is hoping that the Ugly Mug will draw supporters from Marblehead, where her parents still live.

As for her crowd funding experience, she hopes others will learn from her mistake and set their goals a bit more realistically. Failing to do so can be "a little embarrassing" and "humbling," she explained.

But it's perhaps worth noting that even the Ugly Mug Diner's crowdfunding experience is poised to have a happy ending.